A medical doctor in Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture has a cheerful message about radiation exposure after the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident. As you’ve already heard from the other good doctor Shunichi Yamashita, yes indeed, “radiation is good for you”, and it is good for Fukushima’s future.

From now on, the number of cancer patients in Fukushima will decrease.

Food items with a small amount of radiation will fetch “premium”.

Fukushima Prefecture will be the Number One health land in Japan, and people will flock to Fukushima.

Our future is bright.

Like Disneyland, I suppose.

His conclusion is that Fukushima has “an angel’s smile”, i.e. almost harmless, if not beneficial, small amount of radiation.

Looking at his presentation, he seems to have come to the conclusion because:

Fukushima has received a small amount of radiation when it rained on March 15 and radioactive iodine and cesium that were in the air fell on the ground with the rain because of the events on March 14 and 15 (Reactors 2, 3, 4 had explosions) that released a relatively large amount of radioactive materials;

Now it’s mostly only cesium on the surface emitting gamma rays;

They will never know the radiation exposure level in Fukushima until actually measured;

There are people living in the places with high radiation; and

There are data to prove that the long-term radiation exposure of 50 millisieverts/year decreases the number of cancer cases.

He tells us to just think of it as soaking in a radium [radon] hot spring (hormesis effect), particularly if we’re over 40.

Still, the doctor thinks that the community should do everything to protect children. His suggestion? Surround them with lead panels that will block radiation. (Lead poisoning anyone?)

What we can do for children:

Remove surface soil from schoolyards.

Put up lead panels on classroom walls.

Shorten the commute time to and from school.

Drive children to school, and school should allow cars inside the school gate.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”